2012: The things we do to stay alive
by SabreKai
Summary: Same universe, different POV. None of the original characters are in this. Title says it all, there are going to be some pretty wild ideas here. The probable outcome is death, but they have a good start on staying alive. NOTE: This was originally intended as a 1 chapter trial run. However, several people who proofed are screaming for new chapters. Comments and criticism welcome.
1. Chapter 1

Roger Whitfield gazed out over the Napa Valley wine country from 1000 feet in the air. The sun was shining; there wasn't a cloud in the sky until you looked inland to the Sierra Mountains. Below him stretched endless fields of grape vines, as he guided Eureka on what was probably one of her last flights. The word from the head office wasn't good, they were some $5 million dollars in debt and with the crashing economy there weren't many people who would shell out $500 for a sight seeing trip, even one as nice as this.

He glanced to his right and saw his copilot intently monitoring the instruments as the 245 foot long Zeppelin cruised along at 65 miles per hour on this beautiful California day. Glancing back into the spacious cabin, he saw the two young ladies chattering away, pointing out landmarks to each other and snapping photos with their cameras. Roger had chatted with them for a moment when they boarded the airship. He remembered them saying they were a couple of college students out from New York on a 7 day California package tour, taking in the sites by air.

Oh well, he'd known the gig was too good to last. His dad had laughed at him when he'd applied to Airship Ventures with a freshly minted Commercial pilots rating, but miracle of miracles they'd hired him over some Air Force and Naval Aviation types with thousands of jet hours. It seemed that they figured it would be easier for him to learn Lighter-than-air piloting than it would be to convert the other fellows. Not to mention cheaper. So here he was, Captain of a Zeppelin, owned by a company about to go bust.

He flicked a switch on the radio panel and a local new station came over the head phones. He listened as Governor Swartzenegger spoke to the public, announcing that the recent spate of earthquakes was over, and that they hadn't had any tremors in some hours. In other words, "don't worry, be happy". He'd seen photos of the supermarket torn in half the night before and some other news camera coverage of large cracks in the ground down near the water. According to his Nibs the Governor, this was nothing serious and no cause for alarm.

But then he started hearing crashing and banging, followed by screams and cries coming over the airwaves. Then the radio went to static. At just about the same time George reached across and grabbed his arm, gesturing out the window on his side with his other hand. Roger pulled off the head phones and leaned over to look out Georges' window. What he saw confused him. He thought he was flying over a set for a war movie or something. Houses were crumbling and bursting into flame, cars scattered every which way on the roads and smoke and flame erupting on a massive scale.

"Holy Shit! What the hell is going on? Are we under attack?" He asked.

"No, look at the ground over there at 1 o'clock. See it sinking? See the sections rising up? I'll bet we're seeing the "Big One" they've been promising all along. Jesus, I'm glad I'm up here and not down there. George replied, pulling out a pair of binoculars.

As they watched, Roger could hear the two young ladies in the back start to scream and he turned to look out his window. Below him, the land was sinking fast in a chasm a mile or more wide. Even from this height, and with the engine noise to mask it, he felt more than heard an unbelievable roaring rumbling sound, and as he looked towards the north he could see dark blue water rushing in to the sinking valley as the Pacific Ocean started to build a new island.

As they continued on southward back to San Francisco, the devastation increased and the airship started bouncing around in the turbulence caused by the massive blocks of land rising and falling, and the never ending sea of flames below them. Roger pushed the throttles to full and put on some climb trim, and Eureka started to climb higher as they neared the bay area. As they watched, the land all around subsided and the blue of the Pacific Ocean came rolling in, covering large parts of San Francisco and the inland areas in a matter of minutes.

As they watched, container ships, tankers and the old WWII freighter that made her home in the bay washed up miles inland. Tall buildings fell over or were inundated as the land the were on sank beneath the waves. Thankfully they were now some 3500 feet above it all and the show was now more like a night mare video as they headed inland looking for a place to land. The radios were full of mayday cries from aircraft coming in to land at airports now under water, desperately looking for a place to set down in the 45 minutes they had left before their fuel ran out. Roger listened to higher flights that had just left San Francisco heading east reporting massive fractures in the earth, incredible damage to towns and cities on the other side of the Sierras, and one comment being relayed back from a 747 flying over Wyoming that said the land all around appeared to be swelling up as pressures increased beneath the earth. After a few minutes nothing more was heard from that 747, but aircraft to the south and west reported a massive explosion and flame and cloud reaching up some 70-100 thousand feet into the sky.

Someone come up on the frequency and said that he'd been listening to some nut on FM radio who had been telling everyone for a couple of years that the world was about to blow up, it being the end of the Mayan calendar and all, and had been broadcasting from some mountain top, going on about how today was the end, Yellowstone was about to become the worlds largest active volcano. Then he cut off, and hadn't been heard for the last half hour.

After staring out the window in shock for what seemed like hours, Roger finally pulled it together and started thinking about how they were going to survive. He checked the fuel and was happy to see that they still had better than ¾ tanks, which gave him a working range of about 400 miles. Their base was gone, as was his apartment, his parents, girlfriend and just about every one he knew. George was in the same shape. Everything they had had was gone, destroyed in the quakes and tsunamis. He glance back at the two girls and saw they had huddled together, arms around each other and were whimpering and shocky. He tapped George and pointed to the controls.

"I'm going aft to talk to the passengers."

"Ok Roger, I have command."

With that Roger unfastened his belt, got up and headed back to the mini galley. He poured four cups of coffee and brought one to George, then took the other 3 and went over to speak to the two girls.

One of the girls had stopped whimpering and watched as he came aft in the small cabin. Brunette, brown eyes, about 5 foot 5, a slim figure, and a face that had appeared both intelligent and fun loving when they'd chatted, her name was Samantha. Her friend, a slightly taller blonde, a bit more meat on her bones than Samantha, but also very pretty, went by the name of Candace if he remembered it correctly. Candace looked to be in worse shape, still cowering away from the sights below, trying to bore a hole in Samantha's shoulder with her face. Samantha had her arm around here, shushing her from time to time.

Roger knelt in the aisle beside them and offered up the coffee. Samantha nudged her friend and asked if she would like something to drink. The blonde looked up, face tear streaked and stared at the hand with a coffee cup in it. Then she turned her face back to Samantha's shoulder and continued to whimper.

Samantha stroked her hair a couple of times, and then reached out for the proffered cup. She took a sip and then looked back at Roger.

"We're in some deep kimchi aren't we?" she asked.

Considering they were witnessing what could well be the end of man on earth, Roger was amazed at the calm in her voice.

"Yes, ma'am we are. We're OK for now but we have no supplies beyond what's in the galley, and a limited range before our fuel runs out... But for now, we are still alive and that's what counts." he replied. "How are you and your friend holding out? She seems to be pretty out of it right now. I'm surprised you are as calm as you are. Myself, I'm still trying to get my head around what I'm seeing and I'm not making much head way."

"I learned to control my fears a while ago. I decided to take a survival course through the college I was attending. 3 days of class work, and a ride in a truck up into the bush for a "one day" field exercise. Turned out to be a "5 day freeze, starve and get eaten by bugs" field exercise. And like Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, fear is the mind killer. Defeat it or channel it and your chances of living go up a good deal. So I am calm. I'll freak out later when we are safe." Samantha told him.

"Yeah that makes sense. My Boy Scout leader taught us much the same thing when I was a kid. Sit down, build a fire and the panic will go away. Pity I can't build a fire in here."

"So now what are we going to do?" she asked.

"Stay alive."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Roger and George huddled in their seats, an aviation chart laid out on the console between them. They were trying to compare reality with history. Their world was now just that, history. They weren't having much luck either.

Eureka was heading roughly due east at about 3000 feet, and what they had below them had no semblance to the coast line as it was on the chart. For a start, they should have been east of San Francisco Bay. Their GPS even said so. Uh Uh, they were now about 50-60 miles off shore. Just about everything this side of the Sierra Nevada mountains was gone. The San Andreas fault line had finally let go, and taken everything with it. Everything west of the fault and a fair bit east of where it used to be was now underwater. The Sacramento/San Joaquin valley was a debris filled sea, and as far as they could see to the south, it was all gone. Far to the North and Nor' nor' West, they could see the remnants of the coastal range peaking up as isolated islands. Far off in the distance lay the Sierra Nevada range.

George looked at Roger.

"So what do we do now? Where do we go? There's no place left."

His panic was lurking just below the surface, and he was hanging on by his fingernails to what was left of his sanity.

Roger looked at him, and said basically the same thing he'd said to Sam a few minutes ago.

"We stay alive, for as long as we can. As for where we are going, we are kinda screwed that way. Our ceiling is only 8500 feet. You see that shore?" He said, pointing to the low smudge ahead of them. "That used to be the Nevada range. Unless it sank a good bit, it's higher than we can go. So I think we only have two choices. We can go South South East and hope to turn the southern end of the Nevadas or we can change course and try to go north around the top end."

"And then what? Who is to say there is anything left on the other side?" George asked him.

"We don't know. But we do know that we have nowhere here to set down, and nothing to help us if we could land… You know we need at least 3 people on the ground to assist in the landing and handle the ground lines. With no line handlers, I expect that we will either have to find some people or we jump. But either way, I figure the best is to head in this direction," he said, gesturing out the window to the south east, "and let the prevailing wind give us a bit of a boost to our range."

Roger turned in his seat, and called out to Sam and Candace, to come forward and join the discussion. Sam tried to coax Candace out of her seat but she wasn't having anything to do with that. She had pretty much stopped talking and was just staring out the window. Sam gave up, and came forward. She knelt between the two seats and looked at Roger, then at George.

Roger looked down into her eyes, impressed with the calm face she wore.

"Here's the situation. We don't have anywhere to land this side of the Sierra Nevada range. So we have two options. North or South. Which do you think is the best, and why?"

"How much gas do we have?"

"About 400 miles worth. If we go north we go across the prevailing winds, south would give us a bit of a push"

"I would head north. It would be shorter to get to someplace up in the hills, and we'd have a better chance of surviving. At least we'd be able to find food and water. If we head south then we end up in desert."

"George, what do you think?" he asked the copilot.

George looked up from the map and replied "I doubt it matters in the end, but she is right. Desert, especially at this time of year would be nasty. North. I'd head north and pray."

"OK, north it is." With that he turned back forward, and put the airship into a gentle turn, until Eureka was flying NNE about 20 miles west of the coast line. The farther north they traveled, the closer they would approach the new coastline.

"I guess we'll find out what Oregon looks like."

"It's going to take a couple hours or more to get the north end of the Nevadas. Keep an eye open. Who knows maybe we'll find an aircraft carrier or some large ship to land on." Roger commented. Looking down at the water, it sure didn't seem likely.

"You wish" George replied.

Sam went back to her seat, and tried again to get through the near catatonic state Candace had settled into. Try as she might, her friend was just out of it. Giving up she turned to look out the large windows. Everywhere she looked, all she saw was wreckage of various sorts and sizes. Cars, trucks. Houses, trailers, lumber and boats of various types and conditions. Thankfully they were too high to really make out the bodies of the thousands of people who had died that morning. She looked up to focus on the far off shoreline, and trying to see if there was any place to land on between them and that distant shore.

As Eureka moved northwards, and the new coastline came closer, she could make out huge areas of bare rock on the slopes of the Nevadas. While most of the land before the mountains had subsided, and the waves crashing in had not been as large as they could have been, there were spots where the side of a mountain had fallen away. There would not be much hope of landing there, as most of the communities would have also suffered from the quakes. No, it would be better farther north and a lot farther inland.

She got up and went aft to check the small galley. They had been airborne now for a good 4 hours, and she thought that perhaps a coffee or water would help. The Zeppelin had not been built to do much more than sightsee, so the galley as such was pretty sparse. The coffee was in an insulated canister, similar to those used on airliners, and the water and snacks were stowed the same way. The containers were hauled out of the racks and swapped out for the next sightseeing trip. She went back forward to ask the two pilots what they preferred, and gently patted Candace on the shoulder as she went past. She got no response and so she continued on forward.

As she knelt down between Roger and George, they suddenly looked up and turned at the sound of a whistling rushing wind. Turning to the rear, all of them watched as Candace stepped ahead, disappearing through the open door.

Sam screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Roger and George just sat looking at each other in shock. Sam remained crouched between the two seats. No one said anything for minutes which seemed more like hours until Sam whispered, more to herself than anyone else, "Oh Candace, Why did you have to go and do that?" At that Roger reached down and put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned her head into the crock of his arm, and said nothing.

They remained this way until the copilot got up to close and latch the door shut. There wasn't much else they could do, as they were still at 3000 feet. Sam tried to clean up the spilled coffee as best she could and then went back to sit alone for a while. She needed to grieve for her friend and to fight down the feeling of hopelessness that Candace's sudden suicide had thrust upon her. Roger looked back at her with worry written plain as day on his face. She looked up at him, and after a moment or two gave him a weak smile, not wanting to talk yet.

Roger turned back towards the instrument panel and windscreen, glancing down to do his instrument check as a matter of habit. All was as it should be but the fuel gauge was steadily winding down to zero. He estimated another 300 to 340 miles of air time left before they ran out of fuel and had to land. Ahead of them the coast angled across Eurekas' bow, and they were a lot closer now, probably less than 10 miles. They had been chugging along at 60 knots for better than an hour now, heading slowly north east. He glanced over at George, who returned the glance with one of his own. Neither one of them wanted to say anything yet, but both of them were wondering just how much longer they could last before fate nailed them as well.

As they closed the distance to the mountain range, they were able to make out a lot more detail. The Sierras had indeed subsided. As they got closer it became apparent that the subsidence was pretty major. At this altitude they should have been just about ready to hit the ground but here they were, flying along at 3000 feet over the water. Roger checked the GPS and compared it's reading to the chart. According to the GPS they should be on the ground downhill somewhere near Alta on highway 80. Yet the town of Alta was now under them, gone forever. The mountains had been stripped of just about everything but as they passed over the new coast line, they could see trees off in the distance. The new shore line was somewhere east of Alta, but perhaps not as far as Emigrants Gap, which according to his chart was at an elevation of some 5100 feet.

They moved steadily eastward, and finally could see highway 80 rising out of the flattened mass of debris that covered the water. Nothing lived down there, and thankfully they were still high enough to be unable to make out more than just masses of trees, bits of building and chunks of boats and cars. Roger kept cross checking the GPS with the chart, and glancing below to find a recognizable landmark. It wasn't long before he found the single north south strip that was Blue Canyon airfield. It was deserted, no aircraft, or vehicles to be seen. But now he had an accurate location. They were coming up on the top of the pass, and in about 35 miles they should be seeing Truckee, assuming it was still there. He had his fingers crossed that perhaps they might find the area not too badly busted up, and could land.

Emigrant Gap came and went beneath them, as did Yuba Pass, Cisco, Big Bend and Troy. No signs of life, just smashed and collapsed buildings. A lot of fires still burned. Onwards to Kingvale, Soda Springs and Norden. Here the buildings didn't appear as trashed but the ground was rent with great parallel chasms in spots, hundreds if not thousands of feet long and dozens wide. Where there had once been small lakes now only showed as muddy dents in the ground and the area around showed signs of floods as the lake beds drained. There wasn't anything left to land for.

Finally the town of Truckee showed on the horizon. Smoke and flames, massive rents in the ground, buildings down all over the place. Here they saw the first signs of life. Someone was organizing tents and rough shelters in the school field on the western side of town. Further into the center of town, people could be seen clustered like ants around collapsed buildings, making efforts to save trapped victims. The commercial center of town was totally devastated, but people appeared to be trying to help others and salvage material and food for later.

Five minutes later they came upon Truckee airport. According to the Jeppesen manual, there was 100 octane aviation fuel available here. Roger took Eureka in a wide circle over the field, noting the massive crevasses that pretty well cut off the field from the town. The apron was littered with aircraft in various condition, mostly flat on their bellies from collapsed landing gear. A few had been pitched into the sides of hangers or terminal building, and the main fuel pump station was in flames. Several buildings were also burning, and if there were any people about they weren't visible.

George tapped Rogers arm and pointed to the ground near one of the hangers that was still in decent shape.

"Fuel truck there Roger!" he exclaimed. He reached for the binoculars, and took a closer look. Roger turned Eureka towards the truck and finally George looked up at him with a grin.

"100 octane aviation fuel. No leaks, no fires nearby. So how are we gonna land this puppy and tank up? Or do we even bother?. There's nothing here anymore. Not much point in trying to stay here is there?"

Roger took Eureka up to 3000 feet again and headed south for a bit. He took the binoculars from George and had a close look at the buildings which were still standing. He gauged the wind direction and speed from the smoke billowing from the fuel center.

"Sam, could you come up here please?" he called. Sam came up and knelt between the two seats.

"Do we try to land, refuel and go, land and stay or keep moving towards Reno? We might have a chance of getting fuel here, but I don't see any point in staying here. What do you think?" He asked them both.

"Not much point in staying, and our fuel state isn't getting any better. If we want to keep on moving, we'll need to get that fuel into our tanks. Question is, how?" George asked.

"How close can you get this thing to the ground?" Sam asked. Roger kept his eyes on the wind sock below, judging the wind direction and speed.

"Normally we more or less trim neutral, drop lines, and our ground handlers take them in, bring them up onto the mast truck and we either get pulled down or "fly" down under power." He said. "Now we don't have a mast truck, and there are no buildings here that we can moor to. And I don't want to vent any helium, so, in order to do this I'll need to fly her right down to the ground, and keep her down under power while you two get the fuel truck over here. I have to stay in a pretty clear area, the wind is steady but I might need to do some turning if it shifts. There's plenty of space pretty close to the truck so I'm ready"

"Can we tie off to one of those lamp standards maybe?" Sam asked him.

"No, but if we can get some cars over here and park them in a box pattern we could tie down the ship pretty securely that way." He said.

George and Sam both looked out at the parking lot near the "terminal" There appeared to be several cars and trucks there but who knew if they had keys in them. The other option was to bring Eureka down over there, about 300 yards from the tanker. Then they had to hope that the tanker would have keys and run. Either way it was dicey. They kicked it around some more, and decided to ground in the parking lot, secure Eureka there and go for the tanker. This would also give them the chance to rummage through the terminal and see if they could pick up some supplies. So far they had not seen a soul there so resupply might be viable.

"OK, so here we go. When I get over the parking lot, I'll fly us down as close to the ground as I can. George, you can jump down onto a car roof or something, and grab the bow line. Sam, you follow and help George moor us. I'll stay here to fly her if needed. Once we are down, both of you head over to the tanker and get it moving. Getting the fuel aboard is the first priority. After that we'll see if we can do some grocery shopping. But both of you stay together at all times."

Roger slowly descended, and made his approach over the parking lot. He was careful to put her into an open space which didn't have any lamp standards. The lot was partly full, mostly service vehicles. He turned into the wind, and slowly settled. George had the door open, and waited until he was about 3 feet above the nearest one, then jumped into the box of the pickup. He turned round and jumped out, ran forward and grabbed the first of the mooring lines. Sam followed him and picked up the second line.

Tying them to the bumpers of two of the service trucks, they grabbed the next pair and tied them off to another pair of trucks. Roger throttled back, and the airship rose a bit but not much. There was enough weight in the four trucks to hold her down. A third pair of lines made sure of it. The wind was bouncing her around a bit but, nothing to worry about. Eurekas' nose pointed about 15 degrees off the wind and after the mooring lines became taut, she settled down to behave. Sam was reminded of her Dad's sloop, held off the dock by a wind across the dock.

George and Sam made the dash over to the hanger where they'd seen the tanker. When they got to it, they found it had rolled into the adjacent hanger wall, but aside from a dinged fender, it appeared driveable. Sam jumped up behind the wheel, and searched for the key. She finally found it in the map box between the seats. The tanker started up on the first crank, and she let it warm up a bit, while George climbed in on the other side. Working the clutch, gears and gas, Sam got it away from the wall with a shriek of twisting metal, and headed along the taxi way towards the airship. As they got closer they could see her gently bobbing, her engines throttled down to idle, and Roger keeping an eye out the window at the wind sock a hundred feet away. They threaded their way down the row of vehicles and came as close to Eureka as they could. Sam shifted into neutral, stomped on the parking brake and followed George to the back of the truck where the hoses came out. While he figured out the pump controls, she grabbed the nozzle end of the 100 Octane hose and dragged it over to Eureka. Before she got there, George hollered for her to stop, and ran over dragging the grounding strap, which he connected to the airframe. "Gotta be real careful with sparks here Sam!" he told her. He then went back to the truck, and having figured out the controls, shouted at Sam to put the nozzle into the tank. He powered up the pump and the tank started to fill.

Having roughly calculated how much fuel they would need, he slowed the pump down and let Sam pump in the last few gallons slowly with the nozzle control. As he was doing that he noticed a number of 5 gallon Jerry cans in the back of one of the service trucks, so he stopped the pump, and called to Sam to help him get some of them. They found over a dozen, mostly filled with what appeared to be regular automobile gas, so they humped them over to a ditch about a hundred feet past the parking lot and emptied them into the ditch. Once they had emptied them they brought them back to the tanker and filled them.

George shut down the pump, and told Sam to move the tanker away to the other end of the parking lot. He turned to the jerry cans and started to load them into the pickup box, then on to the roof. By that time Sam was back and they loaded the additional fuel into the cabin of the airship.

George walked over to where he was visible to Roger and signalled that he and Sam were going to check out the terminal. Roger gave him the thumbs up, and they both headed off to see what they might salvage.

The power was out in the terminal, and the building was dark but there was sufficient light coming in through the windows to allow them to find the restaurant/bar. No one there. They checked out the reefer in the back, and found supplies of hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, and other meats. At least a dozen cases of frozen precooked chicken patties and sausages, buns, bread, butter, and just about everything you could want in a decent restaurant. They even found a large kettle of chili, obviously prepared the day before. Water, booze, soft drinks, all was there for the taking. The hard part was deciding how to get it to the airship. Finally George went out the back door of the terminal and found a baggage cart and Clark tug out on the ramp. He started that up and drove it straight through the double doors of the terminal, and up to the restaurant. He and Sam heaped several hundred pounds of food and drink into the cart, then George drove it out the front of the building and over to Eureka.

As they loaded the supplies into the cabin, Sam looked up and saw a small group of people standing at the edge of the crevasse that separated them from the airfield proper. They were waving and shouting, looking for help to get out of the town. Sam pointed them out to George who just shrugged and kept on loading. She climbed up into the cabin and went forward to ask Roger if they could do anything.

He looked, and then sadly turned to her. "Sam, we can pick up a couple of them, or we can dump the extra fuel and the supplies and take about half of them. Where do we take them?"

George returned to his seat on the right hand side, catching the comment.

He looked at both of them. "This is going to sound cruel and heartless. There is nothing we can do for them, without endangering ourselves. A few hours ago, I wasn't sure I even cared if we lived or died but now I'm thinking that we go on as long as we can. We have to do whatever we have to do to survive. Yesterday, the world was a kinder place. Today, all bets are off. This isn't a localized event. This is at least a continental event, perhaps even global. So who is going rescue who? We can't."

He looked at Roger, then at Sam. He already knew Rogers feeling, and now he saw Sam turn to look at him, tears in her eyes. She shook her head, and then said " We have to go. They have to fend for themselves, and it sucks. But it has to be this way... Roger, let's get out of here. Before I change my mind or go crazy thinking about."

She and George jumped back onto the pickup, and as Roger maintained control, they cast off the mooring lines and watched them be pulled back into the ship. With the last lines cast off, they both scrambled up into the cabin, closed the door, and watched as Roger increased power and lifted off, turning away from the sad little group on the far side of the chasm.

* * *

How about it people? I feel like I'm posting to the void. A little feedback please n thanks?


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